


A Piece of Luck

by methylviolet10b



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle, Tommy and Tuppence - Agatha Christie
Genre: Chance Meetings, Gen, Prompt Fic, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 12:12:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15436797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/methylviolet10b/pseuds/methylviolet10b
Summary: A chance encounter on a war-time train. Written for JWP #25 over on Watson's Woes.





	A Piece of Luck

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Fairly pointless. And absolutely no beta. This was written in a huge rush. You have been warned.  
> Author's Notes: Written for the following prompt: Who Let That Fat Belgian Bastard In Here? Have Holmes and/or Watson run into another detective we might know from another book/series/film.

“I say!”  
  
I looked up from my letter to find the red-haired lieutenant with whom I was currently sharing a rail compartment staring at me with a speculative look on his young face.   
  
“Yes?” I prompted, when nothing more seemed forthcoming.  
  
The young man flushed, looking younger than ever. We were both on our way back to France and the war. I knew (for he had told me) he had already been wounded once, severely enough (though he did not phrase it as such) to be sent back to London to recover. He could not be as young as he seemed, but from my vantage of years, he still seemed scarcely more than a boy.   
  
“I’m sorry, sir,” he managed at last, “but I couldn’t help but overhear the captain address you as Doctor Watson, and the address on the outside of your envelope says John H. Watson. Are you – would you by any chance be _the_ Doctor John Watson? The author of The Hound of the Baskervilles and A Study in Scarlet?”  
  
I blinked, surprised. On the rare occasions when someone recognized my name – and it did happen occasionally, even in the midst of war – they usually identified me in relation to Holmes. ‘The friend of Sherlock Holmes’ or ‘the fellow who went with Sherlock Holmes on all those cases’ or something like that. “Yes, I am,” I said rather slowly.  
  
“Smashing!” His face flushed with excitement, and he reached out to shake my hand. “I fancy I must have read everything you ever wrote. I certainly tried to, at any rate. Not always easy to get magazines and such where I grew up in Suffolk. You’ve a marvelous way with words, if you don’t mind my saying so.” He beamed, and then ran a hand through his combed-back hair, ruffling it. “I only wish I had something for you to sign by way of an autograph. Just wait until I write Tuppence!”  
  
“Tuppence?” I echoed the outlandish name.  
  
If anything, the lieutenant’s cheeks grew redder. “Oh, a childhood friend of mine whom I happened to run into in London while I was in hospital. She was working on the very same floor I was assigned to, would you believe the coincidence? She’ll never believe I actually met you. She liked your stories just as much as I did, when we were kids.”  
  
The cheerful enthusiasm warmed me, even as he made me feel incredibly old. “Well, Lieutenant Beresford, I don’t have any of my works with me, either. But if you’ll provide me an address, I’ll try to send you something when I get the chance. If nothing else, I can write you a letter, and you can show it to your lady friend.”  
  
“Tuppence and I are friends, nothing more,” he demurred, rather unconvincingly. “And besides, it might be years and years yet before we’re ever back in the same place. Still, that’s uncommonly kind of you to offer, and I can’t thank you enough. She’d never believe such a story without proof, it’s true. And what a piece of luck, that in the middle of this great big war, we should be on the same train, assigned to the same compartment! It’s just like my finding myself on the same ward as Tuppence. There’s something to having luck, I believe.”  
  
“Yes,” I agreed. “Yes, there really is.”

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted July 25, 2018.


End file.
